What was new in Lassalle’s scheme was just this appeal for State intervention. It was his energetic protest against eternal laissez-faire that impressed public opinion, and he himself was anxious that it should be presented in this light. Speaking to the workers of Frankfort on May 19, 1863, he declared that “State intervention is the one question of principle involved in this campaign. That is the consideration that has weighed with me, and there lies the whole issue of the battle which I am about to wage.”[932]
He harks back to this fundamental idea in all his principal writings. It was the theme of his first address delivered to the workers in Berlin in 1862. It is there presented with all his customary force. The bourgeois conception of the State is contrasted with the true conception, which is identical with the workers’. The bourgeoisie seem to think that the State has nothing to do except to protect the property and defend the liberties of the individual—a conception of State action that would be quite sufficient were everybody equally strong and intelligent, equally cultured and equally rich.[933] But where such equality does not exist the State is reduced to the position of a “night watchman,” and the weak is left at the mercy of the strong. In reality the State exists for quite other purposes. The history of mankind is the story of one long struggle to establish liberty in the face of natural forces, to overcome oppression of every kind, and to triumph over the misery, ignorance, want, and weakness with which human nature has always had to reckon. In that struggle the individual, in his isolation, is hopeless and union becomes indispensable. This union is a creation of the State, and its object is to realise the destiny of mankind, namely, the attainment of the highest degree of culture of which humanity is capable. It is a means of educating and of furthering the development of humanity along the path of liberty.
The formula savours of metaphysics rather than of economics. There is a striking similarity between it and the formula employed by Hegel, the philosopher.[934] Lassalle was really a disciple of Hegel and Fichte.[935] Through the influence of Lassalle the theories of the German idealists came into conflict with the economists’, and his incomparable eloquence contributed not a little to the rising tide of indignation with which the Manchester ideas came to be regarded.
III: STATE SOCIALISM—PROPERLY SO CALLED
The years that elapsed between the death of Lassalle and the Congress of Eisenach (1872) proved to be the decisive period in the formation of German State Socialism.
Bismarck’s remarkable coups d’état in 1866 and 1870 had done much to discredit the political reputation of the leaders of the Liberal party, who had shown themselves less than a match for the Chancellor’s political insight. This reacted somewhat upon economic Liberalism, because it so happened that the leaders of both parties were the same.[936] On the other hand, the idea of a rejuvenated empire incarnate in the Iron Chancellor seemed to add fresh lustre to the whole conception of the State. The Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie, first issued by the Historical school in 1863, had by this time become the recognised organ of the University Economists, and had done a great deal to accustom men’s minds to the relative character of the principles of political economy and to prepare their thoughts for an entirely new point of view.
Labour questions had also suddenly assumed an importance quite undreamt of before this. The German revolution of 1848 was presumably political in character: the great capitalistic industry had not reached that stage of development which characterised it both in England and in France; and it is a significant fact that the two great German socialists, Rodbertus and Marx, had to go abroad to either of those two countries to get their illustrations. But since 1848 German industry had made great strides. A new working-class community had come into being, and Lassalle had further emphasised this transformation by seeking to found a party exclusively upon this new social stratum. The association which was thus founded still survives. Another agitation, largely inspired by Marxian ideas, was begun about the same time by Liebknecht and Bebel. In 1867 both of them were elected to the Reichstag, and two years later they founded the Socialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (Social Democratic party), which was destined to play such an important part in the history of the next thirty years.
In this way labour questions suddenly attracted attention, just as they had previously done in France during the July Monarchy; and just as in France a new current of opinion—unceremoniously set aside by the coup d’état, it is true—had urged upon the educated classes the importance of abandoning the doctrine of absolute laissez-faire and of claiming the support of Government in the struggle with poverty, so in Germany an increasing number of authors had persuaded themselves that a purely passive attitude in face of the serious nature of the social problem which confronted them was impossible, and that the establishment of some sort of compact between the warring forces of capital and labour should not prove too much of an undertaking for the rejuvenated vitality of a new empire.
The new tendencies revealed themselves in unmistakable fashion at Eisenach in 1872. A conference, which was largely composed of professors and economists, of administrators and jurists, decided upon the publication of a striking manifesto in which they declared war upon the Manchester school. The manifesto spoke of the State as “a great moral institution for the education of humanity,” and claimed that it should be “animated by a high moral ideal,” which would “enable an increasing number of people to participate in the highest benefits of civilisation.”[937] At the same time the members of the congress determined upon the establishment of the Verein für Sozialpolitik, an association charged with the task of procuring the necessary scientific material for this new political development. This was the beginning of the “Socialism of the Chair,” as it was derisively named by the Liberals on account of the great number of professors who took part in this conference. The same doctrine, with a somewhat more radical bias, became known as State Socialism. The imparting of such a bias was the task undertaken by Wagner,[938] in his Grundlegung, which appeared in 1876.[939]
Difficult though the task may prove, we must try to distinguish between the work of the earlier economists and the special contributions made by the State Socialists. Like all doctrines that purport to sum up the aspirations of a group or an epoch and to supply a working agreement between principles in themselves irreconcilable, it lacks the definiteness of a purely individualistic or theoretical system. Its ideas are borrowed from various sources, but it is not always scrupulous in recognising this.